McEntire, an Oklahoma native, has been charting songs since 1976, racking up 24 No. 1 songs and 59 Top 10 singles. Along with her music career, he's successfully anchored a sitcom, starred on Broadway and currently designs a clothing/shoes/furniture/luggage line for Dillard's. Talk about hard to shop for...

Click the country icon's image above to see a decades-spanning gallery of photos in celebration of her birthday.

Radio station Lightning 100 WRLT celebrates its 21st birthday next week, and independent-minded music venue 3rd & Lindsley celebrates its 20th at the same time. All of this birthdaying will come to a head on Tuesday, March 29 with a multi-artist show at 3rd & Lindsley (818 Third Ave. S.).

Click to see a gallery of photos from Little Jimmy Dickens' birthday celebration in Nashville (this image: George Walker IV/The Tennessean).

Friends and fans gathered Wednesday night at Rippy’s to celebrate the 90th birthday of Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry star Jimmy Dickens.

Mayor Karl Dean showed up to take part in the festivities and to proclaim Dickens, “A man with extraordinary stature in the music business and beyond.”

Dickens received a slew of well-wishers, while thinking back on his first days in Nashville in 1948.

“The first time I ever came to town was for my first appearance on the Opry,” he said. “I thought, ‘I have gone as far as I could ever go.’ Then I went back to work in Saginaw, Michigan, where I was working at a radio station. A few months later, I got a call to come back and do another appearance, and I thought, ‘Now I’ve really gone as far as I can go.’”

In truth, Dickens went much further. In 1964, he became the first country artist to circle the globe, playing for American troops all over the world. He doesn’t do much traveling these days, preferring to stay in Music City and appear most weekends at the Opry.

Click his image above to see a gallery of photos from the celebration. Video footage from the party follows after the jump.Continue reading →

Click to see a gallery of Paramore photos (this image of singer Hayley Williams: Simone Joyner).

It's been an eventful December in the world of Paramore, with two bandmembers leaving just after the group showed up on the Grammy nominees list -- they're up for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals, while singer Hayley Williams also earns a nod alongside B.o.B. and Eminem in the best pop collaboration with vocals category for "Airplanes, Part II."

Williams closes out the month with some celebration: She gets a birthday cake with 22 candles on it today, and like her friend Taylor Swift -- who celebrated the big 21 on December 13 -- Williams has a long list of accomplishments to celebrate at such a tender age, from headlining arenas to earning platinum-album plaques. And since despite the line-up change, Paramore's hinted that work will begin on a new album in 2011, we think it's safe to say she won't be slowing down much in the coming year.

In celebration of Hayley Williams' 22nd birthday, click her image above to look through a gallery of Paramore photos.

Click 8-year-old Taylor Swift with Mom Andrea to see a gallery of photos from the early days of Swift's career.

Feels like just yesterday that country-pop star Taylor Swift was just a precocious teen with big ambitions and an arsenal of big, emotion-baring hooks. And that's probably because it was pretty close to just yesterday.

Today, Swift blows out 21 candles on her birthday cake, and her journey to adulthood has certainly been one for the ages, the young singer snagging more awards and selling more records and concert tickets than some record labels' entire roster combined.

In celebration of Swift's big birthday, we collected a few photos from her career early days -- um, a couple years ago -- so we can fondly remember how we watched a young upstart grow into a superstar right in front of our eyes. Click the image of little Taylor and her mom Andrea above to see the photos.

Click to see a gallery of black carpet photos from the 44th Annual CMA Awards (this image of Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert: Evan Agostini/AP Photo).

You might've heard the little detail slip on Wednesday night's CMA Awards that new female vocalist of the year Miranda Lambert was celebrating a birthday.

We're gonna go ahead and guess she had a fine birthday, since she and fiance/new male vocalist of the year Blake Shelton walked away with some high-profile trophies. But Lambert also got herself a fancy new gadget, Shelton told the Associated Press.

More from the AP:

What do you get for the girl who has everything? An iPad.

Country singer Miranda Lambert celebrated her 27th birthday at the CMA Awards in Nashville Wednesday night, taking home three awards. Her fiance, Blake Shelton, revealed what he got her for her birthday.

Shelton said: "She's freaking rich, man. She can get whatever she wants." So he said he has to buy things for her right when they come out so she doesn't have a chance to get them yet.

The Country Music Hall of Famer, who became a pioneering figure in country music when her “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” topped country charts in 1952, is the rare Music City star to actually have been born in Nashville. She was born Muriel Deason but took the stage name Kitty Wells after a folk song, “I’m A-Goin’ To Marry Kitty Wells.” She was Billboard’s top female artist of the decade for the 1950s and again for the 1960s.

Wells is retired now, living in Madison with her husband of 72 (count ’em!) years, Johnnie Wright.

Wells' 90th birthday celebration was held at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop's Texas Troubadour Theatre in Nashville. Click her image above to see a gallery of photos from the event.

Country Music Hall of FamerCharlie Louvin can boast decades of achievement on which to rest, but he certainly hasn't retired -- when he had 80 candles on his birthday cake, Louvin earned a Grammy nomination for his 2007 self-titled album, and he followed that up by earning yet another Grammy nod for 2008's Steps To Heaven.

Louvin celebrates his 83rd birthday today (July 7), while in the midst of a health struggle -- the country icon's official website recently revealed that after heading to the doctor with a "minor complaint," Louvin "came back with a diagnosis of stage 2 pancreatic cancer." Louvin is scheduled to undergo surgery at Vanderbilt on July 22, and he hopes to be back on stage by August 21. He's also planning on releasing yet another new album soon. Share well wishes at Charlie Louvin's official website.

Between what he's done and what he's still doing, there's much for fans to celebrate about Charlie Louvin's life.

In honor of his birthday, click Louvin's image above to look through a decades-spanning gallery of photos.